Trip With The Family

I have been tired for the past week, especially last Monday. On Tuesday I had an appointment with my doctor who confirmed that I had premature contraction (coz I was having period pain-like ache) which I think was the impact of my exhaustion from the recent trip I had with the family, and I was given MC for 2 days. I didn’t even go to the seminar at Bursa on Company and Corporate Disclosure (I couldn’t get up; I was having back pains and stomach cramps). My baby now weighs between 2.7kg to 2.9kg and my doctor feared that the baby would weigh up till 4kg come my due date on the 26th of February, causing other issues like possible hemorrhoid and c-sections, both I deeply want to avoid. So she’s proposing that I do a planned delivery which means I would have to be induced. I pray to Allah that it wouldn’t have to come to that.

And to make matters worse, my email is not functioning. Somehow, it is not connected to the server or something. This always happens to me. I don’t know what the issue is really. Perhaps I need a new set of PC or something. Others don’t seem to have the same problems. They can always connect to the server. But I would have problems. At this age and time, we rely a lot on the Internet. Emails are crucial. Things are always being communicated via emails. So if the server is down and you can’t connect to the email, it is really a huge matter. I’ll have to talk to the IT guy again. It is pissing me off.

Anyway, why am I tired? I just got back from Lumut last weekend. My parents, well Ayah lah, decided to take a family trip to Damai Laut last weekend. Ayin and family, myself and Ibu/Ayah. Ayah booked the Swiss Twin Villa. It’s not the apartment, but it’s a single storey semi-D. Very nice house. Didn’t look too nice from the outside, but once inside, you just forget what the house actually looks like from the outside. It had 2 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms. My children, upon seeing the bathroom, immediately wanted to take a bath. The tub was quite big, so the children had fun playing in the water, splashing about and just literally had fun. I had fun watching them. I think they spent nearly an hour in the tub. That actually gave me time to rest. Just imagine, we left KL at about 1pm and reached Damai Laut at only 5.45pm. The journey was tiring. I don’t remember travelling that long when I went to Damai Laut a few years ago. Of course we stopped at Teluk Intan to have a late lunch (the food was good – pajeri terung, sambal sotong, kerang rebus, udang masak cili api dengan kacang buncis, you name it.. typical Malay dishes and they were good. It was really cheap as well; only RM38 plus drinks).

That night, we didn’t go out for dinner. Everyone was just so tired. Luckily I brought a lot of food. I had lots of biscuits, 2 loaves of bread, tuna spread, sausage rolls, a few packets of drinks, bihun goreng, and so forth; suffice to say, we weren’t hungry at all that night. The next day, we went to the resort for breakfast. Since it was a buffet, I ate quite a lot. Well, if it wasn’t a buffet, I think I’d still eat a lot. Hehehe.. but surprisingly, the nasi lemak and sambal ikan bilis were good, in comparison to hotel standard. The rice tasted rich with santan and the sambal was spicy, not sweet or gingery-taste like most hotels; so two thumbs up for that. Of course there were other food, you know, the usual breakfast food. After that Bie and I took the kids to the beach to play with their kites (Ayah bought it for them from the hotel’s shop; see what I mean about twisting their grandfather with their little fingers); it was a long way down mind you to reach the beach, and I had difficulty climbing up the stairs to go back to the hotel. Let’s just say I had to make a few stops while going back up. And after that, I took the kids to the pool. Raqib was in the children’s pool, whilst Marsya wanted to try the adult’s pool. I didn’t swim with her, but I went round with her (Marsya in the pool while I was at the edge of the pool, every ready to jump in if she faced any difficulty – luckily she was alright. She had the float with her). We spent about an hour and a half at the pool, with my parents taking a rest under the cool shades of the big pool umbrella. I have to admit, it was fun doing it through the eyes of my children. Their laughter, their shrieks and their excitement were just the essential thing that made me enjoy the day at the pool, despite the hot weather and the fact that I was sweating everywhere.

After that, we drove out of the hotel and had lunch at a restaurant called Cili Api. It was alright. Still couldn’t challenge the food we had at Teluk Intan. We reached the twin villa at about 4pm and stayed indoors to rest. I tried to take a nap, but when you have active kids who slept in the car even for half an hour and still feel very refreshed, I couldn’t really go to sleep. But yeah, with the cool temperature in the room, it was the perfect ambience to go to sleep. I managed to rest for about 2 hours though. So it was good enough for me.

That night, we went to Teluk Batik to have dinner. Ayah wanted to order some ala-carte at the resort, but there was also an ‘army’ of Sunway Construction people there. They were having their family day. And we didn’t fancy going to a dining area with lots of people, so we decided to venture out and get a taste of the Lumut seafood. That’s where we decided to have dinner at Teluk Batik. The food was alright (I know, I have been talking about food again and again… I promise, for this entry, this will be the last mention of food). We ordered Kerapu sweet n sour, oyster egg, beansprout ikan masin, kalian oyster sauce, black pepper beef with ginger, chicken soup, seafood tom yam and udang lipan with dried chilli. There were a LOT of food. The fish was huge. I tried to eat the head coz Ibu said, “Sayang kepala ikan tu, Long” so yeah, I tried to eat the fish head (but failing miserably at it; I know a friend of mine would kill me for the eyes – he likes them and I don’t know why) and also finish a few other dishes. But by the end of it, I just couldn’t eat anymore. I was just too full. My stomach felt like it was about to burst with the baby popping out anytime soon. So I stopped (yes, I’m capable of stopping just like that). The damage that night was just RM187, for 6 adults (the kids didn’t eat much). I thought it was alright considering the amount of food we had on the table.

By the time we reached our villa, we were just so very sleepy. Because the road heading towards Damai Laut is a bit scary (7km of absolute darkness and silence, through swampy mangroves and palm oil fields), Bie drove quite fast. And Marsya just had to tell a story about a ‘pocong’ which she saw on TV at her Uwan Lif’s house (Uwan Lif is my Maksu; because she stays on the 4th floor apartment and we had to take a lift to go to her place. Uwan Buai is Ibu, because our house in Seremban has a swing). What she saw was basically a comedy, so she wasn’t afraid when she relayed the story to us. But for us adults, we didn’t really like her story. I mean, the route was dark. Anything could just spring out from the side of the road, giving us a surprise of our lives. So Ibu had to gently tell Marsya not to say such things because it wasn’t nice. I guess she was also trying not to scare Marsya. But yeah, the road was just too dark so can be a little scary.

The next day, after breakfast at the resort, we packed up and left. There went our 3 days 2 nights stay at Damai Laut. We made a stop at the Lumut waterfront first because Mak wanted us to buy anchovies. I also bought a few goodies to bring back home with us. And on the way to Bidor, we stopped by the roadside to buy mangoes and limau bali (the limau bali was quite expensive there. The limau bali in Tambun was cheaper but since we were nowhere near Tambun, we just had to make do with RM18 per limau bali there).

We reached KL at 9pm. I was dead tired when we reached home. I couldn’t stand up anymore. My back hurt, my feet were swollen and I was just too exhausted to speak. By 10pm, I was already in bed, lying down. I couldn’t sleep though. Probably too exhausted from the travelling. At about 11pm, my children retired to bed and slept next to me. Nothing is sweeter than having your kids sleeping next to you like that. Raqib had his arm around my neck, whereas Marsya slept while holding my hands. It was a wonderful feeling. I sniffed their hair inhaling the wonderful smell of shampoo and kissed their eyes. When they’re asleep, they are the most adorable children in the world. But when they’re awake.. OMG, let’s just say it can be quite testy; up to the point that Marsya likened me to an evil stepmother. Can you imagine that? Hehehe.. children and their imagination.

Will post some pictures soon.